GenesisDB – The event sourcing database, is now open source

GenesisDB, a database built for event sourcing, released version 2.0 on October 24 with its complete source code on GitHub under the MIT license, covering the server, every SDK and the VS Code extension, according to the release announcement. Event sourcing records every change to an application's data as an event appended to a permanent log, and the current state is worked out from that history instead of being overwritten in place. The announcement's case for opening the code rests on that design: with event sourcing the history is the system, so choosing an event store is a long-term commitment, and public code means users do not have to wonder whether the vendor will still exist in ten years.

The release also drops the separate Community and Enterprise editions. The announcement says there is now one GenesisDB with every feature and no license keys, event limits or subscriptions, and the MIT license lets anyone use, modify, embed and redistribute it commercially. It does not say how earlier versions were licensed or what the Community edition left out.

Two features deal with problems specific to a permanent log. Every event is chained to the one before it with a SHA-256 hash, a fingerprint that changes if the data changes, so the whole store can be checked for alteration in one request. Deleting personal data, as GDPR can require, conflicts with an append-only history; GenesisDB says it erases personal data held in reference payloads with one request while keeping the hash chain valid and writing an audit trail. The announcement does not explain how that erasure works. For existing users, 2.0 is described as a drop-in replacement that migrates 1.x data directories on first start, but the migration is one-way, so the post requires a full backup first, and the authentication token must now be at least 32 bytes.